A guardian ad litem appointed to advocate on behalf of a 14 month old baby has recommended to the court that his mother stop breast-feeding him.

The guardian was concerned about the child ingesting medications prescribed for his mother.

The mother maintains that she researched this issue carefully and that her baby nurse and one of her son’s doctors all encouraged her to breast-feed with full knowledge of her medication regimen. The mother also sought out the input of the author of a book on medications in mother’s milk and he too approved her choice to breast-feed.

Nonetheless, the dispute over whether the mother should breast-feed will be put before a family court judge and could influence whether he will leave the mother as the baby’s primary residential custodian.

Just in case, the mother is stocking up on formula for her son.

The unusual case raises troubling issues regarding the propriety of this intrusion into the mother’s parental rights and rights to privacy.

And certain states have banned smoking in homes with foster children. Presumably, infractions could result in foster parents being dropped from the fostering program and their foster children being removed from their home.

According to recent statistics just released by the New Zealand family courts, child custody determinations there are gender-neutral, meaning that either parent may win custody without regard to that parent’s gender.

The New Zealand statistics demonstrated that roughly two-thirds of the time, whichever parents seeks custody, receives it. In New Zealand, that is still the mother more than twice as often as the father.

Gender-neutrality is also the rule under Florida statute and is becoming increasingly common throughout the US.

Knowing how Japan deals with child custody and visitation cannot help but influence one’s thoughts on the NJ Supreme Court’s recent ruling – although it clearly did not influence the court.

To its credit, the Japan Times just published a long, hard look in its legal mirror. Apparently, it didn’t like what it saw there. The published piece also unequivocally criticized the NJ Supreme Court’s recent ruling – on sound legal grounds.

“Professor Colin Jones of Doshisha University testifies in a recent law journal article, ‘In the Best Interests of the Court: What American Lawyers Need to Know about Child Custody and Visitation in Japan,’ … Japanese courts often act in the ‘best interests of the court’ to protect themselves from becoming irrelevant to society due to their inability to enforce their own orders. This authoritative source ensures that future judges will understand the unique meaning of the ‘best interests of the child’ in Japan and realize that even Japanese court orders are not enforceable, so neither are foreign ones.”

New Jersey, however, sees no legal distinction between relocating to, say, Virginia or Wyoming, and Japan.

But there is a such a distinction and many other states not only see it but address it squarely in their statutes and/or case law.

And more may join them in the near future as the The Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act (UCAPA) eventually gains adoption in more states across the US. Other legislation targeting this problem is also being lobbied vigorously.